


The Book

by truthsetfree



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-15
Updated: 2012-07-15
Packaged: 2017-11-10 01:59:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/460991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truthsetfree/pseuds/truthsetfree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Excerpts from: Peter Gabriel's "The Book of Love" (italics).<br/>Disclaimer: Anything you recognize does not belong to me.<br/>Concrit is: always welcome. Seriously, don't hold back. I'm a big kid. I can take it.</p><p>Songfic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Book

_“The book of love is long and boring.”_

It is written in the most mundane things. 

It’s a blend of long winded answers to “How was your day?” It is shared meals, and smiles over warm beverages, and laughter, and waking in the same bed. It’s a shoulder to lean on, and a united front. It’s simply being happy for each other.

Long and boring. It’s what we tell children when we don’t want them to be too interested.

But that is the truth.

Oh sure, there are surprises every now and then, sacrifices are made (but they aren’t often thought of as sacrifices), and countless creations have been dedicated to it. It is true, there are passages of blood and sweat and tears. But that isn’t the bulk of it. For the most part it isn’t grand gestures, but rather, quiet moments.

Jack is happy Gwen has what he could never give her even though he has forever. He tries to help her treasure it, because he knows what it is worth. 

The Doctor has all of time and all of space at his fingertips, and it wouldn’t be the same without Rose. But even if he didn’t always have the feeling, just as he’s finished fixing something, that he should be somewhere else in another time, he’d still have a duty, an obligation, as the last of the Time Lords. It isn’t that he ever feels he should be with someone else. That isn’t it at all. It’s just that, Rose would want Christmas and cradles and grocery coupons and a real solid stationary home where you have to pay a mortgage or rent. And she deserves it. She absolutely does. But he just can’t.

_“No one can lift the damn thing”_

Just ask anyone who’s tried. Their love unrequited, their feelings pushed aside like trivial things, often suffering in silence and sometimes shedding nightly tears. Just ask Tosh, who never had a chance.. Just ask Martha, she’ll remember even though she’s moved on. It cannot be done because the book wasn’t made for one alone to lift. The big secret is this: it isn’t a sword in a stone. It is the stone itself.

_“It’s full of charts, and facts and figures.”_

There’s basic math of course. 1+1= 1, and 2-1=0. And some put more store than others in Birthdays and Anniversaries. Usually though, it’s just geometry like triangles (for building), and measurements, and maps of features. By the time you realize you have tables and Venn diagrams of their likes and dislikes, wants and needs, it’s too late, and your friends all look at you with a mixture of amusement and pity. You can arrange the information anyway you want, really. People do it without even realizing.

Ianto knew long before Jack did, and made his peace with it first. 

Jack stared into many hypervodkas at the swirl of data he never even knew he’d acquired. 

_“And instructions for dancing.”_

It didn’t feel like dancing. Not to Rose. A dance, a ball dance, was formal and structured. It was a show of skill more than anything. Memory and grace and rules. This wasn’t like that at all. She never knew three hearts could beat in a waltz.

When you’re dancing at a wedding, a celebration of devotion and faith, hold your partner close, and try not to step into other peoples shoes in your mind as your feet are moving together on the ground. Jack said goodbye to what could never be, and leaned a little closer into what could.

_“But I---  
I love it when you read to me  
And you---  
You can read me anything"_

They all knew exactly what she meant- the movement of his lips and the timbre of his voice and the twinkle in his eye made it all worth listening to or at least watching. He could read anything at all and she’d stand transfixed. It made them feel so special, how could it not, to have this clever man babbling away from a text and expecting them to understand. They’d react how he seemed to expect them to, and they’d reach for whatever words or general ideas they could, but it was all too often centuries beyond their own education. The thing is though, they all remembered bits and pieces. Rose remembered more than most, and used it to find him. It had meant something after all.

_“The book of love has music in it  
In fact that's where music comes from_

 

It goes without saying that melody and lyrics mean more, are easier to connect with, when sentiment is shared. On some planets it started when someone tapped something, wanting to say something but not having the words. The tapping simply stated what their heart did when the other was near. On other planets, in other times, it started with other instruments. The first stringed instrument on Metzgortzuh 5 was painstakingly planned out and created by hand and took years to learn how to play effectively before it could be used. Old, so old there was little time left for either of them, that first song, however simple, said everything it meant to. At the same time, on Lalees 4, a wailing song was heard and it struck at many hearts and stuck many breaths, because, everyone who heard it knew, that’s what it sounds like to miss someone. The words when finally added, didn’t always add anything at all. 

_"But I---  
I love it when you sing to me  
And you---  
You can sing me anything"_

Time and space is full of love songs, but the only one that means anything to either is the one that means something to them.  
They had a song they danced to, and forever after, that was “their song.”  
They had a song they sang bits and pieces of softly, not because they wanted to be heard but because now the song meant something and they wanted to feel all of it at once.  
They had a song they thought of when the other was near. A song somehow connected to the whole affair.  
They had songs that they shared.

The Doctor had a mix cd Rose made for him and the TARDIS sometimes played for him when she was gone, thinking only of how happy hearing it once made him until he asked her to stop.

Ianto had a mix cd he stopped listening to, and songs he would eventually listen to again without turning the volume all but off until they were over.

_"The book of love is long and boring  
And written very long ago  
It's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes"_

It was written long before Ianto, and Rose, and Gwen, and Rhys, and Tosh, and Owen, and Martha were born. Longer before Jack was born. It was even written before the Doctor. And it would go on long after they were all gone. The trappings and symbols themselves don’t matter, as long as they’re understood.  
Knowing how much Rose loved tulips, the Doctor took her to the height of the Dutch tulip mania, and smiling, bought her a bouquet. It mattered more that she knew he’d stored that away somewhere in his head, that he considered it worth the space, however small, and it told her for sure what he thought of her, after all, no matter what he’d said or avoided.

It felt a bit strange, buying the chocolates for Jack, and he offered no further explanation when he passed them across his desk with a perfect cup of coffee. He only said “Happy Valentine’s Day, Sir,” and left to do some filing. But he’d only given the others cards and chalky candy with blurrily printed clichés. Jack didn’t notice until Gwen happened to mention…

_"And things we're all too young to know"_

Time Lords live for centuries, and Jack would live even longer, but neither would ever be old enough to know, really know and comprehend, why the ones they loved must always leave them, and why they had to go and fall in love at all. Because it always did feel like falling. And if you had essentially eternity like the Doctor and Jack did, you would always hit the ground eventually. 

_“But I---  
I love it when you give me things”_

Rose, like every other Companion, had given him intangibles. Things like hope for the future, and awe at whatever she saw. A freshness. It was new through her. That was why he preferred to travel with someone. But Rose had given him something else as well. Something he couldn’t find words for. Though it sounded like the strumming of strings, and when she was gone he visited Lalees 4 many times.

_“And you---  
You ought to give me wedding rings”_

As the last Time Lord he has a duty, an obligation. It isn’t that he ever feels he should be with someone else. That isn’t it at all. It’s just that, Rose wants Christmas and cradles and grocery coupons and a real solid stationary home where you have to pay a mortgage or rent. And she's absolutely earned it. She absolutely has. And now, he can give her that. One of him can, anyway.


End file.
